Artist Colours. Hot Or Cold? You Decide!

Hot Or Cold? You Decide!Do not try to make a colour that is neither hot nor cold. Neither hot nor cold is to be grey, and that is one step away from mud. This is a secret that took me ages to finally think about long enough to realise that I was missing out on simplifying my colour mixing. If you decide early, what do you want? Now you must make sure that you are choosing pigments that allow you to achieve this end. I am not saying that you should not have cool colours in a hot colour mix, or the other way round, but I am saying that you should favour one or the other.There are many wonderful opportunities that you will miss out on if you do not understand the importance of using hot and cold colours in contrast to each other. Any colour will probably have elements of cool and warm in them, but when they are in shade, they will have more of the cool blues, and the same colours in light will have more of the warm colours. To be more specific, look at the painting below. Can you see what I am banging on about??Can you see the difference between the hue, and the colour? The way that the value is more important than the actual colours.

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Can you see the difference between the hue, and the colour?

What Value Do You Want To Mix?We will look at colour for a moment. We have the “Hue’ which is where it lies on the colour wheel, between hot and cold, the actual colour itself. The value of a colour is the depth of grey that colour would be if it was reproduced in black and white. So blues have a darker value than yellows.That decided, you should be mixing with colours that lean towards that value. If you are looking at a blue, for example, and you are looking at mixing a lighter blue as in the sky, I would err on the side of Cobalt blue, rather than Ultramarine, at least to begin with. You can change the hue of the colour by adding Ultramarine or what ever else you decide to the mix later on, if it needs it.Now here is a pearl of wisdom that has taken me 30 years to fully realise!! If you can grasp this you will produce paintings that are truly creative.The value of any colour is much more important than the hue!! You can, for example paint a tree, hill or what ever else you can think of in any actual colour that you like. They do not need green!! The human brain will allow you to see them as trees, or hills as long as they are the correct value!! The correct shapes will help, but if you have the correct value, you are half way there.